


Trial and Error

by shyday



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Community: daredevilkink, Community: hc_bingo, Concussions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-04
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-04-12 23:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4499580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shyday/pseuds/shyday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You're a lot of scary adverbs right now, my friend. Trust me when I say that "fine" is not one of them.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t the follow-up to “Beer and Blood” you might have been hoping for. Nor is it the crack!fic I’ve been writing to try and make it up to you. No, it’s only another random fill for – say it with me, now – the Daredevil kink meme and my h/c bingo card. We’re going to call this one the wild card square. Just more of the same.
> 
> Netflix/Marvel canon. I make no money because they don’t belong to me.

* * *

 

 

He can do this. He can definitely do this.

 

Matt takes a deliberate breath, shifts his cane from his right hand to his left and pulls open the door. Sound ricochets off the high-ceiling of the courthouse entrance like tennis balls coming at him from every direction, making it difficult to pin down the positions of all the bodies surrounding him. Doing nothing to help his headache. He thinks about turning around, going back home.

 

But him being here is Important; Matt’s certain of this much, even if he’s less clear on the why. He’s hoping that when he finds Foggy – because the courthouse implies Foggy, doesn’t it? – he’ll be able to fake his way through long enough to refresh himself on the details. It’s not a brilliant plan.

 

Especially if they’ve got a trial.

 

Because, well… _courthouse_. The same certainty that had hissed its way through the pounding headache this morning to assure him that there was somewhere he needed to be had also been quite insistent on the _where_ ; the only thoughts, really, that had been allowed to fully form at all as he’d stumbled his way through his daily routine. It’s probably a trial.

 

No problem. He can handle a trial.

 

 _You keep standing here, people are gonna start thinking you can’t handle anything_.

 

Even Stick sounds obnoxiously loud this morning. Though Matt’s forced to concede that he’s got a point when he’s suddenly surprised by a hand on his arm; he jerks away automatically, barely prevents those same reflexes from retaliating.

 

“Sir?” a young female voice asks. “Do you need assistance?”

 

“No.” Matt flinches at the sharp annoyance in his tone when it bounces back at an odd angle from somewhere across the room. He knows he’s mostly irritated with himself. That he hadn’t noticed her approach. “Thank you,” he tries again. Kinder this time, though it sounds brittle and forced to his ears. Matching up perfectly with his weak attempt at a smile. “I’m fine. Admiring the architecture.”

 

In his mind, Stick snickers. The girl makes a confused noise, something between polite agreement and actual words; it doesn’t manage either, but it results in her hurried departure. Matt suspects he’d feel worse about this if it weren’t for the throbbing of his head. Clearly, he needs to get moving. To find Foggy, to gather what details he can before he’s expected to put on any kind of a performance. If this lobby dress rehearsal is any indication, he might be a little off today.

 

The flickering shapes of his world are dim, indistinct this morning; too easily altered by intruding sensations as he walks toward one of the metal detectors. Wavering under the shrill assault of a cell phone. Smearing when he passes through a lingering cloud of perfume. He can’t trust what the fire wants to tell him. Matt puts his briefcase through the x-ray machine and fumbles his keys out of his pocket. He misjudges his path through the plastic arch and clips it with his shoulder on the way through.

 

It feels as if the whole room’s watching him, a spectacle in the center ring. The security guard standing beside the machine certainly is. His coffee breath is too close – a direct echo of the scent wafting up from the cup waiting at his station – and it’s aimed in Matt’s face. It takes more time than usual to filter through all the stimuli, to get a working image of the guard.

 

Calm, experienced. But wary. Still watching him.

 

Matt’s not sure why this is exactly, but he allows his shoulders to slump a little under the incessant beat in his head. Intentionally making himself look as nonthreatening as possible. He collects his things on the other side of the scanner, trying to be subtle as he runs a hand lightly over his tie, his buttoned suit jacket. All seems as it should be. Even when he gets past the guard and checks his zipper.

 

Still he can’t escape a skittering paranoia that people are staring; his cane taps on the marble floor as he crosses to the bank of elevators, and it sounds unnaturally loud despite the rest of the noise zinging about the lofty space. Tension vibrates up and down his neck while he stands stiffly in front of the metal doors, tuning itself to the frequency of his headache. Such a challenge to look natural when you’re actively trying. He doesn’t feel as if he’s at all accomplishing it.

 

He's alone in the elevator, though it takes a minute to figure this out through the stale cigarette smoke and body odor. He runs his fingers over the braille numbers to find the right button; the heavy doors slide closed, trapping him in with the smells. The car begins its climb with a lurch that sends a whiplash of vertigo up from his feet to his head, and he has to brace himself with a hand on the cold steel wall. Saliva pools at the back of his tongue.

 

Matt gags, swallows. Considers briefly the possibility that maybe he’d been hit harder than he’d thought.

 

But there’s no time to reconsider. He’s committed now; the elevator brakes with a jarring thud that rattles all of his bones. A last deep breath of the pungent air makes him cough, spiking silvery shivers of pain through his skull. As the doors grate open – with an off-balance screech that rakes nails over his eardrums – he lifts a hand for a quick examination of his hair and tries to stand up straight.

 

_Get it together, boy. Crying over a bruise._

 

Matt latches on to the faint familiarity of Foggy’s aftershave, pastes a fresh smile on his lips and moves that way. Karen’s with him. They’re standing in front of the emptiness of a big window, and he counts five other people milling about the corridor as he walks toward them. It’s too much work to narrow it down to anything more specific than that.

 

This thought seeps slowly into his brain, and he chastises himself for it. Though that scoffing may be coming from Stick. It’s more difficult to tell the difference today.

 

“Jesus, Matt. What the hell happened to you?”

 

“Huh?” He blinks in Foggy’s direction, remembers a step too late to make his feet stop walking. Matt moves back a pace, and the world shifts disturbingly that way. “Am I late?”

 

“You’re filthy.”

 

“S’a clean suit,” he protests, the first argument that comes to mind. He’d freed it from the dry cleaning plastic wrap this morning; the tetrachloroethylene underlines the universe, a chemical thread woven through everything.

 

“Not the suit. Your _face._ ” The word breaks into independent letters made of smoke; they drift around the sides of his head to reunite at the back of his skull. Matt raises a questing hand toward his jaw. Karen says something about sitting down.

 

He brushes his fingertips over his skin and the whole area lights up. They come away gritty, smell of dirt and oil and asphalt. Had he showered this morning? Of course he had.

 

Right?

 

He can’t actually recall. It chills him, this gap in his memory, but there are hands on his arms and he’s distracted when his feet start to move without his direction. The air goes thick and slippery; Matt wants to tell them to stop, but he’s afraid that the only thing that’s going to come out of his mouth is the moan ghosting around in his head. Or the banana he’d had for breakfast.

 

Had he eaten breakfast? He doesn’t want to think about it.

 

His knee finds the carved stone of a low bench, a second before he’s virtually forced down onto it. “What happened to you?” Foggy asks again. He’s clearly stressed; Matt reminds himself that he needs to find out what they’re doing at the courthouse. “How’d you get here?”

 

This feels unimportant, but he answers anyway. Maybe he can trade for information, a subtle swap. “Cab. What time is the –?”

 

There’s no real end to the sentence, but Foggy cuts him off before it becomes obvious. “Did this cab _drag_ you here?”

 

Matt scowls at this ridiculousness; the expression pulls at his bruised temple, pushes at his sore jaw. “Course not.” The whole point of taking a cab had been to avoid the overwhelming swamp of the subway. To make things easier, more comfortable. It would’ve hardly been more comfortable to have been dragged behind it. Probably illegal, too.

 

“Well that’s what it looks like.” There’s a discussion over his head about water, but Karen’s heels click away before he can ask her to get some for him as well. Foggy spits – uncharacteristically inappropriate, here in the hallway – and Matt’s about to comment when a damp roughness that smells slightly of coffee and chocolate scrubs at his cheekbone.

 

He tries to bat at it, but there’s a strange disconnect between his brain and his arm and his fingers flutter uselessly against his leg. “Quit it.” It seems impossible that there should be so much more substance to the air up here than downstairs. Matt twists his head away, and it’s like moving through water. “Foggy. Stop.”

 

“Seriously, Matt – this is not a good look on you. Did something happen last night?” His voice arcs too sharply and Matt flinches. Foggy misinterprets. “Karen’s not here. Talk to me.”

 

Another swipe at his skin with what Matt’s realizing must be Foggy’s handkerchief; he finally gets his arm up to curl a hand around his friend’s wrist, annoyed at being treated like a child. “Know she’s not. She’s at th’end of the hall.” It’s offered as proof of his spatial awareness, his coherency. It just sounds petulant.

 

“Did you hit your head?” Foggy asks. Matt can hear his frown turning down the corners of the words, shaping them serious. This is why telling Foggy had never been part of the plan.

 

Matt’s pretty certain that there was a plan at some point. “She went left,” he says.

 

Foggy’s fingers sweep over the lump near his temple, pushing back the hair there; they both suck in a breath. “Aww, geez. Yeah, you hit your head. Okay. Okay.” He _really_ sounds stressed. Matt’s a little concerned that this case might be bigger than he’d thought. “Okay, are you hurt anywhere else? Did you call Claire?”

 

“S’at the vending machine. Doesn’t have enough change.” It’s taking a huge amount of concentration to track Karen, but he can’t seem to stop. She’s rooting through her purse. He tells Foggy this too, hoping that the continuing demonstration will ease his nerves.

 

It doesn’t seem to be working. Maybe because for some reason Foggy’s having a completely different conversation. “Claire’s not here,” he says, dropping his hand. “We’ve got to get you out of the building. Before the Delevans see you.”

 

“What?” The Delevans had a son. He’d died… at school? Negligence. “M’fine.” This feels more true now that he knows why they’re here. A pretrial meeting with their clients. No problem.

 

“You’re kidding, right?” Foggy asks. Matt should have taken this as rhetorical; he shakes his head in answer, and everything dissolves into a sloshing nausea. There’s no way he’s going to be convincing if he throws up on Foggy’s shoes. “I’d bet my nonexistent medical diploma that you’ve got a concussion,” his friend says, oblivious to the peril he’s in.

 

“Do not,” Matt mumbles, swallowing hard. Stick’s laugh is all jagged edges, slicing the inside of his head. _Gonna need fancier words than that in the courtroom_.

 

“That,” Foggy says. “Right there. Exhibit A. Followed by B: you don’t slur this badly when you’re drunk.”

 

Had he been slurring? He doesn’t think so. Matt tries to replay the snippets of conversation he’s had since he got here, but he finds only static. He’s pretty sure that he’d talked to someone though. Downstairs? His head aches; he slides his fingers up under the bridge of his glasses to pinch at his nose.

 

Foggy’s not yet done presenting his evidence. “C: you’re way too pale. Like freakishly close to the same shade as your shirt pale. Oh, and the one I probably should have led with: you’ve got a bump that’s the size of a _golf ball_ on your head and you look like you were pulled down the street behind a team of horses. Is that last one two? Maybe that should be two.”

 

“Why… why would there be horses in Hell’s Kitchen?” He’s never seen a horse. Except for in a couple of old movies when he was a kid. He wonders what they smell like. Whether those manes are silky or tangled coarse.

 

“Jesus,” Foggy says again. Matt opens his mouth to tell him to quit swearing in church. Closes it quickly when he remembers that they’re still at the courthouse. “Did this happen last night? Why didn’t you call me? Or Claire?”

 

“M’fine. S’a bruise. Lucky shot. I can do this.” He stands up to prove the point. It’s a mistake only comprehended after the world begins to settle from its spin and he’s back on the bench.

 

“You’re a lot of scary adverbs right now, my friend. Trust me when I say that ‘fine’ is not one of them.” There’s a swish of fabric against fabric as Foggy checks his watch. “We’ve got two hours before we’re due in court,” he says. It doesn’t sound like he expects Matt to confirm this, which is good as he can’t. “I’ll see if I can get a postponement. I’m thinking the Medical Emergency card. We’ve got Alinez – she likes you. I’ll tell her you got crazy food poisoning or something.”

 

The mention of food makes his stomach roll. It suddenly occurs to him that he’s in a very public place, that he’s painting a pathetic enough picture already. Desperately measured breaths in and out through his nose. Coffee. Tetrachloroethylene.“Fog, no. I can –“

 

“You _can’t_ ,” Foggy insists. Matt winces, misses the rest of what’s said because he’s lost in his utter loathing of those two particular words stuck together. “I promise I’ll be vague when inventing embarrassing details. It’ll work.”

 

 _You gonna let him tell you what you can’t do?_ Stick grumbles, his opinion plain. _Get up, boy._

 

But where Foggy’s seeing adverbs, all Matt’s got are adjectives. Sickening odors and discordant noises, porous stone under his fingers and weighted air holding him down. He hasn’t managed to stand by the time he picks out the signs of Karen returning.

 

“Here comes Karen,” Foggy says unnecessarily. “Please, Matt. Let her take you home.”

 

She’s using a new mint shampoo; he’d missed it when he’d first arrived. “Sorry that took so long. I had to dig through everything in my purse to find a quarter.” There’s the splashing of contained liquid, the crunch of the plastic in Foggy’s grip when she hands over the bottle. Matt hears the seal break on the cap.

 

“Here.” It’s more insistence than offer, though he doesn’t understand immediately that he’s the one Foggy’s addressing. “Drink.”

 

Matt obediently raises a hand, and the wet bottle is pressed into it. He’s incredibly thirsty. He hears the elevator doors open, three more people disembarking onto the floor. Four. The wail of a baby splits through his skull.

 

Foggy’s spinning some story about a mugging; Matt wants to interject, but he doesn’t have anything better. It seems like they’ve given Karen this excuse more than once, though. Surely at some point it’s going to be less believable.

 

“So I’m thinking you get him back to his apartment, and I’ll take care of things here,” Foggy tells her. It sounds reasonable and deliberated and like Matt doesn’t get a vote.

 

“Are you sure I shouldn’t take him to a hospital?” Karen asks.

 

Matt scowls. “Okay, one: I don’t need a hospital. And two: still conscious, still sitting right here. Not deaf.”

 

It’s what he’d meant to say anyway, but the silence that now surrounds him suggests that it may not have come out exactly as intended. Foggy’s balance shifts back and forth, indecisive. “Probably,” he says to Karen. “But good luck –“

 

Matt pushes himself up, determined to make his case; the universe goes liquid, drenching him icy cold from the crown of his head down to his toes. It’s unexpected. Almost as surprising as when somebody suddenly messes with the gravity, pitching him face-first into Foggy’s shoulder. His limbs feel absurdly heavy.

 

“Right,” Foggy amends. “Hospital.”

 

“M’okay,” Matt mumbles into the lapel of Foggy’s suit. Detergent and deodorant. Toothpaste and soap and all the countless other bits that compose his best friend. The world rocks more gently like this, and he considers staying this way forever. He wonders if Foggy would mind.

 

“We so don’t have the time to argue about this. The Delevans are going to be here any minute.”

 

Matt’s finally able to lift his head; his glasses feel crooked, the right side of the frames embedded into his face. He makes a clumsy swipe for them, and his hand lands on Foggy’s chest. He might be a little drunk. Impressive, since he doesn’t think he’s been drinking. “Fog…”

 

“ _No_ , Matt. You need to go with Karen. They’re going to think… Actually I have no idea what they’re going to think. But I can promise you that it’s not going to be an impression that our _struggling_ fledgling law firm wants to project.”

 

“S’not that bad.” He’s just dizzy; it’s already going away. Matt runs his hand down the front of his suit, doesn’t find any wrinkles. “Clean suit.” He can’t understand why Foggy’s making this out to be more than it is. He can’t look _that_ rough. They’ll never know.

 

“Yeah, you already said that. And I believe you. The issue is not with the suit, my friend.”

 

Compared to Foggy’s, Karen’s fingers are long and thin where they rest on his arm. A barely-there pressure, uncertain of liberties allowed. “We’ll get a cab. I’ll stay with you.”

 

That baby definitely needs to be changed; he can’t understand why its screaming or smell hasn’t yet conveyed this to the parents. _Applesauce. Carrots_. He thinks about going over there and saying something, but the hallway stretches farther than it seems it should in that direction.

 

“Okay gross,” Foggy says. “And you realize you’re making my point for me here? I’m pretty sure this hallway’s the same length it’s always been.”

 

“What?” It’s difficult to think through the baby’s howling, the beat of Foggy’s heart. The shiver of glass panes in the windows under a breath of wind, the whirring of the elevators trudging between floors. His own blood moving sluggishly through veins and arteries. But he can’t recall Foggy ever having the ability to literally read his mind; he would have remembered that. “How’d you –?”

 

Foggy’s breath hitches, his entire body going stiff under Matt’s fingers. “Shit. Shit shit shit.”

 

“What do you want to do?” Karen asks.

 

Matt’s struggling to catch up, searching for the new danger. Boots, birds. Hope, heartache. The far end of the hallway continues its crawl away from him, and he doesn’t think his pulse used to be so _deafening_.

 

“… ‘s happening?” The question sounds incredibly confused, but Matt’s grateful that someone else has thought to ask it. Even if for some reason they’re doing it in an imitation of his voice. The mimicry is annoying – and not very good, only a little bit like him – but it saves Matt from having to ask it himself.

 

The answer comes in the form of sodden cloth slapped into the side of his face, frantically rubbing at his abraded skin. Matt yanks his head back in surprise, but the handkerchief obstinately follows. It’s in his mouth. He spits it out, trying to get away. An unsteady half-step in reverse bumps him against a body. _Karen_. A hand tightens around his arm. _Foggy_.

 

“The Delevans,” Foggy tells him, with another rushed attempt to clean his face. “You gotta stand up straighter than that. And, uh… try not to say anything.”

 

It’s insulting, but now Matt notices that one of his hands is still curled in the front of Foggy’s suit jacket. Maybe he could do with a little advice. He lets go, trying to ignore the way the noises of the corridor merge into a high whine before separating themselves out again.

 

He’s distressingly ungrounded. He works to force his expression into the opposite of this.

 

He’s fine.

 

Mr Delevan smells like Sister Mary Elizabeth. _Gin_ , Matt corrects himself, smoothing his frown and holding out a hand. They’re moving at the same time and he’s not paying enough attention; their hands collide awkwardly before fitting together. Delevan clears his throat. Matt swallows and breathes through a rigid smile.

 

Mrs Delevan’s fingers are uncalloused and the way they flutter against his makes Matt think of a bird. A little one, each heartbeat trembling every feather. When the contact is broken, he rubs his fingertips together in an effort to rid himself of the unnerving sensation. It doesn’t work. Nor do his feet when the group begins to move down the corridor.

 

 _Proprioception_. It’s a good word. A good feeling. Matt misses it.

 

A hand closes around his elbow, support when he stumbles. “Stop talking,” Foggy whispers. Urgent, next to Matt’s ear. He ducks his head as Foggy’s exhale tickles the tiny hairs, and the universe slip-slides into a new angle. Matt presses his lips together, trying to stop the groan that wants to wiggle free. He wills the world to right itself. Wonders what he’d said.

 

“There’s a bird in here,” he tells Foggy. Someone should see about letting it out. Do they just call Animal Control when that happens, or is there some kind of specialized bird division? Are they going to be able to catch and release it without trouble? Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe it would have gotten out on its own.

 

They’re still moving forward, but the grip on his arm has gotten much firmer. To the point of being uncomfortable. Still it’s no competition for the pain in his head.

 

“This isn’t going to work,” Foggy mutters.

 

“Sshhhh,” Matt says. Sister Mary Elizabeth is going to hear them.

 

The small conference room they’ve borrowed is too warm; he’s already sweating under his collar. Though only on one side, which seems strange. No, wait – it’s water, still trickling down the side of his neck from the hastily overdone sponge bath. Handkerchief bath. Matt wipes at it as he finds his chair, annoyed. Foggy should have been more careful. He’s supposed to be making a proper impression, and he doubts that looking half drowned is helping.

 

Sitting again is a relief far more wonderful than he could have ever predicted, and Matt forces himself not to slump in the chair. Foggy instantly takes control of the room; Matt hopes that he didn’t just thank him aloud. He bites his tongue, something finite and manageable to concentrate on. Allows the sound of his friend’s voice to wash over him, fill the room, instead of focusing on the actual words.

 

This seems to be successful, for a while. He knows he should be paying more attention to the details – How long had Foggy said? Two hours? – but they swirl around his skull and he has to remind himself not to physically reach for them to keep them still. He knows all of this already. It’s in his brain somewhere. It’s simply a matter of jiggling the information loose from around the pesky knot on the side of his head.

 

 _Pesky?_ That one doesn’t feel like an actual word.

 

Foggy clears his throat; Karen coughs, a sound too delicate to be unsculpted. Matt’s teeth find his tongue again.

 

By the time they get around to reviewing the Delevans’ testimony, it seems to Matt that they must have surely been in here for nearly both of those two hours already. And that their group has used up most of the oxygen in this room. His hands are fisted in his lap, but he’s certain that the top of the table will be blissfully cool were he to flatten his palms against it. His forehead. God how he wants to put his head down.

 

 _He’s lying_.

 

Stick shoves him back into the conversation, though it’s a scramble to pull together the threads. The boy, the accident. _Never caused any trouble_. Hesitation.

 

“You’re lying.”

 

Something slams hard into his shin from the right, and Matt can’t choke down his surprise. It takes a second to identify it as a shoe. Foggy, because he doubts Karen can kick that hard. And she’s on his other side. _Focus_. Matt gets the message, but it seeps in too slowly to be of any use; across the table, Mrs Delevan is making choking noises of her own. There’s no need to see them to be able to pick up on their outrage.

 

He tries quickly to salvage the moment. “What I mean is, I… your son, he…” The words tumble out of his mouth with an alarming lack of control or direction.

 

Solving nothing, and now Mr Delevan is on his feet. “Just what are you saying? Who the hell do you think you are?”

 

Foggy’s standing too, desperately placating, and Matt thinks that he probably should be as well. He tries it; the room tips over. The armrest crunches a new bruise over the old ones on his ribs as he bounces off of it when he falls back into the chair. Different from the ache in his head, and for a moment he revels in it.

 

“… wild accusations,” Delevan’s saying when Matt fades in again. “You think just because you’re blind that gives you an excuse to be an asshole? And what are you, drunk?”

 

 _You should know_ , Stick sneers.

 

Or possibly it’s Matt. In retrospect, he can find no other explanation for the room’s sudden explosion into motion.

 

His name in Foggy’s voice and Karen’s trying to get his attention and someone’s crying in the hallway and there’s a jogger outside. Garlic and grass, cologne and whatever that chemical is called that they used to last clean the carpets – he’s almost got it, but the metal detector goes off and he’s yanked downstairs – and that crying might be coming from inside the room. A woman. Sister Mary Elizabeth leans in too close, her breath hot on his skin, and when she pulls the arms of his chair to face her everything dips into a sickening spin. He doesn’t know where he is. The only thing he can tell is that she’s not the one crying.

 

Foggy’s angry; something’s wrong. It’s almost all he has, this knowledge, with the exception of his certainty that the one thing Sister Mary Elizabeth hates most is little boys who whine. Whimper. Sniffle. He needs to get away from her, before he makes it worse for himself by doing one of those things. She’s angry, too, though he can’t remember what it is that he did. The gin she exhales coats his throat.

 

He’s not supposed to move, not until she’s done, and even though he knows this his arm’s coming up to shove her back. She’s shocked – it radiates off of her bright from the dark, and a useless whisper warns he’ll suffer for this later – but it puts enough distance between them for him to make an escape. Foggy’s loud now. Way too loud.

 

 _Foggy_. Matt’s spine hits a wall. They’re in the alley.

 

And he isn’t sure why anymore, but Foggy’s here and there’s danger and it’s his job to get them out. Nevermind the nauseating way the night air is whirling around him, the inexplicable headache and the disturbing sense that the smells surrounding them aren’t quite matching up with where he knows them to be. He can still protect them. Matt tries to push Foggy behind him, to keep him out of the reach of the man approaching – the stranger’s heading directly for them, and he reeks of gin – but Foggy’s fighting him on it. There’s no time to figure out why before the guy’s on them. Matt gives up trying to reason it through and takes a swing.

 

It connects, as he’d expected. The subsequent grunt of pain that sounds remarkably like it came from Foggy, less so; the noise freezes Matt’s arm before it can fly again. A hand on his wrist, his shoulder, a familiar voice murmuring in his ear. The conference room snaps into undeniable focus around him and his legs stop working. Carpet under his knees.    

 

The Delevans. He’s going to throw up.

 

He swallows down the bile but not the moan; his brain struggles to reconcile the scattered fragments of the last few moments with where he finds himself now. Courthouse. Delevans. Alley. _No_ … Why is he thinking about Sister Mary Elizabeth?

 

“What did I do?” The one thing he actually intends to say aloud, and it feels nearly inaudible.

 

“You definitely made an impression.” Foggy’s beside him. On the floor. The room they’re in is empty; there’s plenty of people out in the corridor, but stretching his senses that way opens a floodgate that he shuts down as quickly as he can. Matt fights to breathe evenly. “Can you stand up? We’re going to get you out of here.”

 

“But… the Delevans… Did I –?”

 

“Karen’s talking to them. If they’re still in the building. Don’t worry about it.”

 

He’d gotten off at least one good shot in the alley before… the alley was last night. But his fingers are still cramped in their fist, and he remembers… God, had he hit somebody? “Foggy…” It’s another moan.

 

“Later,” Foggy says. “Maybe I should call an ambulance.“

 

“No.” Nobody will forget the blind man being wheeled out on a stretcher. An image that will stick; he has to work here. Matt tries to put together a convincing argument. Or at least a complete sentence. “M’okay. You should… you should go talk to them… ‘pologize.”

 

For whatever horrible thing it is that he did. He winces as this thought jumps around, seeking a place to land. To dig in, to take root.

 

“Probably.” Foggy’s breath shifts across Matt’s face as he turns his head toward the door, back again. “Forget them. That guy’s a jerk.”

 

Disoriented as he is, Matt knows Foggy well enough to be able to hear that he doesn’t mean this. “Grieving,” he mumbles anyway. It hurts to acknowledge it. The least he suspects that he deserves.

 

“Yeah,” Foggy agrees with a sigh.

 

Gravity pulls his chin toward his chest. “Fog… tell me I didn’t…”

 

“You didn’t.” It’s said swiftly, displacing any air that might be used for discussion. Without a doubt as to the question. “You wanted to,” Foggy admits, when Matt lifts his head to protest this obvious warping of the truth. “But it’s okay. Nothing happened.”

 

This too feels a hurried and glossed over assurance, but now the door opens. Foggy’s hands disappear. Matt works to push himself up from his knees. It’s Karen; she enters and closes the door behind her, but she remains on that side of the room.

 

“I, um… I did what I could. They want to talk to you – they have questions. About the trial.”

 

She’s clearly speaking to Foggy; Matt lurches to his feet mostly because he feels foolish on the floor. And because it seems like it should help. Something. It doesn’t – anything – and the only reason he doesn’t end up back on the carpet is the arm thrown hastily around his waist. Foggy’s got impressive reflexes.

 

“I should…” Matt starts, but his hand is directed to a chair and the rest of him down into it.

 

“Sit here for a minute while I go deal with them? Exactly what I was going to say.”

 

Matt frowns. Had that been…? He doesn’t think so. He removes his glasses, rubs at his eyes.

 

“You gonna be okay until I get back? Because I can –“

 

“Yeah. Go.” He wants to go home. The threat of an ambulance keeps him sitting up relatively straight – as best as he can tell – while Foggy’s flat footsteps cross to Karen and the door.

 

“You should put some ice on that,” she murmurs. She may as well be leaning over Matt’s shoulder for as clearly as this reaches his ears.

 

 _Ice?_ His fingers spasm around the glasses in his hand; he tries to unclench his jaw. His grip before he bends the frames.

 

“Later,” Foggy says to her. “ _Later_ ,” he repeats, this second thrown back across the room though Matt hasn’t actually said anything. The door opens, and he exits into the hall. Matt lets his head drop down onto the table.

 

He’d been trying to protect Foggy. In the alley. Except Foggy hadn’t been in the alley last night. Sister Mary Elizabeth. No. Delevan. _No_ …

 

The carpet muffles the sound of Karen’s heels, but the smell of mint is everywhere. Matt can’t find Foggy’s voice in the jumble of the corridor; he should be able to easily. “Tell me. What happened.” He doesn’t lift his head. The frustration – _fear_ – colors his tone, reflecting it back at him from the table top in the Daredevil’s growl.

 

“Everything’s fine.” It might be the least persuasive he’s ever heard her. “How are you feeling?”

 

Like he’s on a boat in the middle of the ocean during a storm. Or so he imagines. He hates boats. “Karen.” It’s supposed to sound more demanding than it does. “Please.”

 

“You’re not yourself, Matt. Everything’s fine. We’ll go soon, get you checked out at the –”

 

“Dammit, just –“ He’d gotten the demand that time, but it’s instantly lost along with everything else the moment he raises his head from the table. Karen’s gone. The room. Up, down. A bit of the groan that pushes through his teeth is trapped rumbling around in his skull.

 

“Matt?” Karen has more hands than she used to; none of them remain where they are long enough for him to envision their shape on his clothes. “Hang on, I’m getting Foggy.”

 

“Don’t. M’okay.” His groping fingers find her sleeve. He’s pretty sure he’s not fooling either of them, but she doesn’t pull away. Matt inches his fingers further forward, circling them around her wrist. A solid point to focus on in all the confusing motion. “Please, I need to know.”

 

Still she dodges. “Things happened really fast. I’m sure Foggy can –“

 

There’s no comfort to be found in this half answer. “God…” Had he hit Foggy? Why would he hit Foggy?

 

Karen sucks in a breath. His fingers are digging into her flesh; it dents under the pressure. He releases her as fast as he can when this registers. The carpet catches at the legs of the chair as he tries to get away from her, and everything wobbles dangerously.

 

“Matt –“

 

Mint and applesauce and Sister Mary Elizabeth, and Matt finally figures out where the floor is when it rushes up to smack him in the side of the head. The air’s forced out of his lungs by the hard armrest; he’s making a terrifying gasping noise in his attempt to gather it back, but it’s all he can manage. If only the world would be still for a moment – just one – he could sort out what’s happening.

 

The flames have dwindled to pinpricks of sparkling lights. The short fibers of the carpet push their way between his lips.

 

Stick’s voice cuts through, clipped and clear and cleverly finding a way to bypass his brain. _Breathe. Get up. You’re defenseless on the floor._ Matt’s body obeys on its own; a sightless blink, a tiny hiccup in time, and he’s wedged up against the potted tree by the wall. Partially under the table, a low ceiling above his pounding head.

 

_Breathe. Start at the center._

 

Heart pumping, circulating blood though lungs that are getting enough oxygen no matter what his mind thinks. Back and out again to his head, his torso. Arms, legs; fingers, toes. Artificially cooled air on his face, the backs of his hands, and there’s a wall behind him. A table hanging over his head with a wad of dehydrated gum stuck to it. An empty room, but in a crowded building. Not empty. Karen’s here.

 

He’s positive of this. Certain that they’d been talking, though not as sure about how he’d ended up on the carpet. There are far too many holes in this day. Foggy walks through one of them now, inarguably here though Matt hadn’t heard the door open.

 

 _Get up_ , Stick’s voice hisses around the room. This time Matt’s legs refuse the command; the ceramic planter is gritty under his fingers, but he can’t find the strength to leverage himself to his feet. Foggy crouches in front of him, teleported from his silent entrance to this spot without a trail in between. The wide lip of the planter bites into the underside of Matt’s knuckles.

 

“I talked to Claire,” Foggy says, his tone a wrapping paper layer of calm. “She’s expecting us. You ready to get out of here?”

 

Matt doesn’t have to pick at very much of the tape to get a glimpse underneath. Foggy’s way more worried – _tired, angry_ – than he’s letting on, and there’s a lot of effort going into pretending otherwise. Because of Sister Mary Elizabeth. The Delevans. When had he given Foggy Claire’s number?

 

It’s all mashed together into an unidentifiable entrée, and Stick will be disappointed if he can’t separate out the ingredients. A hand on his arm. But he needs another minute. “Fog…”

 

“She’s waiting at the hospital for us, and I’m not going to be the one to call and tell her we’re not coming.” The rebuttal is prepped and delivered before Matt can offer even an opening statement, and he wonders if Foggy had come up with it while still out in the hall. “Cab or ambulance, buddy. Your choice.”

 

The heavy planter is a solid fixture in the unending motion of his universe; he clings to it, fighting to form thoughts amidst the rare spaces in the rhythm in his head. A plastic bottle appears from nowhere to be directed into his hand, room temperature and nearly empty and he wishes it were colder. Maybe Foggy has some ice.

 

 _You should put some ice on that_.

 

“What happened?” He tries to put all of his weight behind it, but it’s barely a whisper. “What’d I do?”

 

“I’ll tell you about it later. Over a beer. Once we’re sure you’re not bleeding inside your brain or whatever.”

 

“Now,” Matt gets through his teeth.

 

“Is that gum?” Foggy says. “Gross.”

 

The ceramic doesn’t crinkle like the plastic, though his grip tightens around both. The tension in his jaw is adding to the headache, and he’s beginning to think that the big planter might be a good place in which to throw up.

 

“Look, he was in your face. And you were obviously confused. It was a misunderstanding.”

 

“But I… I think I hit…” _You think?_ He knows.

 

He doesn’t know anything right now.

 

“Yeah, well…” It drifts away into the blackness. It doesn’t seem like there’s any more; the air conditioning tickles unpleasantly over Matt’s scalp. But now Foggy continues, “I, uh… I could see what you were going to do, but I couldn’t stop you in time. Like I said, you were confused.”

 

 _Assault_. _Arrested, maybe even disbarred._ “… pressing charges?” He doesn’t want to ask it, has trouble getting it out.

 

“What?” Foggy’s a burst of confusion; it glows a hot expanding white before it fades. “Oh. No. Delevan’s fine. Though I doubt he’ll be giving us that five-star Yelp review.”

 

A grunt of pain shaded to sound like Foggy. Twisting through Matt’s mind with the taste of recent memory. It takes a couple of attempts to click the pieces together, but eventually they fit; even in the dark, he doesn’t like the picture. “You got in the middle. God, Foggy… m’so sorry…”

 

“Relax,” Foggy tells him. New tape over the holes in the wrapping paper. “You barely got me. A decidedly glancing blow. You punch like a blind guy.”

 

“Not funny.” Matt doesn’t need Stick to point out that this too feels like a lie. But he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about it. Even negligibly afloat in this sea of disorientation, it seems wrong to simply let Foggy sweep it away. “How… how bad?” The question breaks in half, spreads its bitter flavor over his tongue.

“A tiny bruise, which will totally heal. In the meantime, I think it lends me a bit of mystery. Which can only help.”

 

“Still not funny,” Matt tells him.

 

“Neither is the fact that you’re still on the _floor_ , Matt. You know I don’t even have to dial 911, right? I can just shout for an ambulance. It’s a government building, there might even be one waiting outside…”

 

 _Courthouse. Conference room_. It feels as if this might not be the first time he’s had to remind himself; Stick assures him that it isn’t. One of Foggy’s knees pops when he shifts his weight. “M’okay,” Matt slurs automatically, and the smell of coffee surges past all the mint with Foggy’s sigh. Apparently not the answer he’d wanted, then. Matt frowns, sifts through the mush for something else. “Cab.”

 

Because he doesn’t think there’s any way he’s getting out of the hospital. Not if Claire’s been involved. And Foggy had definitely said something about Claire. He’ll play along; when they get there he can ask her to examine Foggy. Be sure that there’s no serious damage.

 

“Up,” Foggy says. Part statement, part question; Matt nods, and immediately wishes that he hadn’t. He concentrates on the ceramic cutting into his skin. On not leaving a disgusting mess for housekeeping. “Slow,” Foggy cautions. Matt sends him a scathing look, but it’s cut off abruptly when the tug of his eyebrows cracks across his forehead to make everything worse.

 

“M’sorry,” he mumbles again, once he’s mostly standing. Foggy’s pinning him awkwardly to the wall with his shoulder, doing a large chunk of the work; it’s difficult not to notice. “You were right.”

 

And the floor is flat. Absolutely not moving. He can’t ask for confirmation.

 

“Clearly the lesson here is that you should always listen to me. Class dismissed.” Foggy peels him off of the wall, and a fuzzy blanket descends over Matt’s senses. Consciousness flickers. He struggles to breathe it back. “You okay?”

 

He’s tired of responding to this. They don’t believe him anyway. “Bacon-wrapped sushi,” Matt mutters. He’s not entirely sure how he managed to come up with this contrary proof to Foggy’s supposed omnipotence, but he’s glad he did when it earns him a snort of amusement.

 

“Delicious,” Foggy insists. He pulls Matt’s arm over his shoulders, and the world reorients. “You’re the only one who doesn’t think so. Ready?”

 

“I can walk. On m’own.” He’s not positive that this is true; it simply seems like the thing to say. Stick’s pushing for it anyway, determined to show no weakness. But Foggy’s warm and stable, and Matt’s leaning into him without meaning to do it.

 

“Did we not just talk about you listening to me? How’d you get such good grades in school?”

 

His first steps are an intoxicated stagger, even with Foggy’s support. “Cheated off you.” As they near the door, he searches for an indications that there might be a well-meaning crowd – or angry mob – waiting for him outside. He can’t hear anything but murmured conversations blending together.

 

Foggy ignores the obvious flaws in this explanation. Some of the stress in his tone dissolves; Matt feels rewarded. “Only you would get better grades than the guy you’re cheating off of.” Annoyance only for show now.

 

Matt realizes he’s missing something; his fingers come up to his face and he’s sure. “My glasses…”

 

Karen slides into focus, suddenly back in the room. He’s really not paying enough attention, and he waits for a predictably snide remark from Stick to lash him for it. Nothing. Stick’s pissed at him. Or it’s just that they’re both exhausted. Matt can’t ask anybody for confirmation on this either.

 

She nudges the glasses into his hand, and he puts them on. It makes him feel a bit calmer, this barrier, but they still feel misaligned across his nose. One side bending in further than the other. “I’ve got the rest of your stuff,” Karen says. Matt forces out a belated thank you, distracted by his pointless attempt to straighten the frames.

 

When they reach the door, he tries to pull away again. Foggy refuses to release his arm; Matt doesn’t remember him being this strong. “Le’me go. Not going out there like –“

 

Foggy’s frustration flares amazingly close. “Like what, Matt? Like a human being who sometimes needs a little help?”

 

“I don’t want…” _Curiosity. Pity._ “They’ll think…” _Incapable. Pathetic._

 

It splinters off, and he wonders if Foggy’s going to make him say everything out loud.

He doesn’t; Matt feels like a traitor for having doubted him. “Yeah, I know. But trust me – the worse you look, the better it probably is for us in the long run. Or have you forgotten, Counselor, that we’re trying to ditch out of a trial?”

 

“D’we even have clients?” He doesn’t want to go out there, but he’s got very few options. It’s a bit of a strain to locate the grate covering the air vent; he tries to gauge the size of the opening when he does. It would be uncomfortable, but Matt thinks he could fit.

 

“A technicality, and one that in no way invalidates what I said. You’ll have to try harder, my friend.” Foggy directs him a short detour to the right, out of the way of the door as it’s pulled open; it’s got to be Karen’s doing, because Matt counts both of Foggy’s hands. One circled around his wrist to keep his arm captured over Foggy’s shoulders, the other a pressure on his sore ribs that Matt’s doing his best to ignore. “Better yet,” Foggy says, dragging his focus back, “you could stop arguing and just come with me.”

 

The corridor has grown more populated since the last time he was in it; there’s a flash of something too much like panic, and Matt almost yanks Foggy back into the conference room. _Longer this takes, the more likely it’ll be a scene_ , Stick warns. This sounds a valid point, and Matt lets it move his feet out of the doorway.

 

As unbalanced as he is right now, Foggy would probably be able to catch him before he could get that grate off and scramble into the vents anyway.

 

“You’re like twins, with those bruises,” Karen comments from behind them.

 

Matt flinches, and there’s no chance that Foggy didn’t feel it. Another apology pushes at his lips; he tries to come up with something to add to the repetition to make it echo less hollow. He can’t. And he’s blind to the humor that Karen sees.

 

But it doesn’t matter because Foggy won’t let him say it. Won’t let him stop walking. His fingers squeeze Matt’s wrist. Reassuring.

 

Conspiratorial. “Don’t worry about it,” Foggy says in his ear. “We’ll come up with an awesome backstory in the cab.”

 

 

 

**end**

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Generally when I post something, I’ve already done everything I wanted to with it. But I get so much joy out of hearing from all of you – I may be a bit addicted – that I started this back in August after a couple of people requested it. It’s been nearly abandoned several times, but there are a few bits that I like that I couldn’t bear to part with. (And, after a fic passes a certain word count, it always seems a shame to never let it see the light.) So I kept coming back to it and it kept getting longer, and though I’m still not happy with it, I think I’m finally ready to be rid of it. Suffice it to say that if you’re tired of what I do, you won’t find anything new to entertain you here. But if my absence has made your heart fonder, I invite you to please enjoy. Hopefully.
> 
> I still make no money, because they still don’t belong to me.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The MRI machine is agonizingly loud, the earplugs they’d given him useless against the vibrations that thrum through his bones. An enclosure claustrophobically cylindrical, and his fingers twitch with the impulse to stretch his arms out to beat at the walls, the ceiling. He can’t breathe in here. Can’t think around this booming noise.

 

He wants to get out. He’s got to get out.

 

“You need to relax, Matt. We’re almost done.” The voice is familiar, female. Winding through the cyclical pattern of sound with a soothing certainty. But suddenly he can’t place it, and there’s another flush of panic. “Matt? Listen to me: you have to hold still.”

 

It’s impossible to gather a sense of the room beyond the scanner; the interference from the machine is too insistent. The universe tastes only of plastic and antiseptic. “… can’t… have to…” Matt chokes. He can’t hear himself, isn’t certain he’s speaking aloud. Doesn’t know who he’s talking to. Pleading with.

 

Gravity grabs at his ankles, dragging everything into an unexpected whirlpool spin. He instinctively fights to keep himself from being pulled into it, but his clawing fingertips bump over the ridges in the walls. There’s no viable handhold, no way to stop the slide. That voice, virtually shouting now; the room explodes in a abrupt expansion. He launches himself toward freedom and his feet find the floor – where are his _shoes_? – and though he thinks he’s standing the magnetic waves tingle over his skin, distorting his perceptions. Leaving him uncertain. Clinging to the edge of whatever he’d been lying on he tries to ride them out, but there’s a growing buzz filling the room, filling him. Overwhelming. He’s falling.

 

Falling _falling falling_ and it seems he’s on the ground but still he’s falling _falling falling falling_ every bit of him vibrating, each molecule at a different frequency, no beyond, no before, just this, only vibrating, falling _falling falling falling_ …

 

Claire’s hands are the first external sensation to break through, instantly recognizable even with the world so confusing. They are, as always, defined ultimately by their professionalism, and he wonders – not for the first time – how much of this is the skill that he knows directs them and how much is due to the distancing latex. Her hands erase the vibrations by inches, and his lips move to thank her. If she hadn’t found him, if she hadn’t taken him in… He’d be dead.

 

Claire is life. Beauty and kindness and life and –

 

“And while that’s all very sweet,” Claire says, next to his ear, “maybe now’s not the time.”

 

“But…” He barely remembers the escape, let alone hauling his broken body into that dumpster. The impulse to hide, the impossibility of anything past that. The awareness that closing his eyes there was nothing less than a surrender. That he probably wouldn’t be opening them again. “Thank you, Claire. You…”

 

“We’re not the only ones here, Matt.” He works to translate this with muted senses; entering the busy hospital had felt like being tossed without warning into the deep end of a pool, and the only way to keep from drowning had been to shut it all out by hastily erecting every painstakingly-learned barrier he had. There’s little getting through, even from Claire right beside him. “I know you’re not going to like this,” she says, “but I want to keep you here overnight.”

 

_Who else is here?_ Foggy had said something about a phone call, Matt remembers; as soon as they’d met Claire he’d left them. Matt doesn’t think he’s returned, but he can’t be sure. Though it seems somehow inconceivable that Foggy could be nearby without him being able to tell. So if not Foggy, then…

 

Wait, overnight? “No.” The word doesn’t fit in his mouth. “Claire, no.”

 

“You’re already here. What’s a few more hours?”

 

He can’t stay here. He _won’t_ stay here. They can’t force him to. He’ll sign himself out AMA and get a cab if he has to, the minute she’s called elsewhere. She can’t watch him every second.

 

“Wow. You _really_ don’t like hospitals,” Claire murmurs. Matt doesn’t know why, but he’s glad she’s finally beginning to understand this. “Okay. Before we get into all that, let’s get you off the floor. Ready to try and get up?”

 

The paper gown is an insufficient layer between his skin and the chill of the linoleum, a problem he’s only just noticing. “Yeah.” It’s more of a grunt than anything else.

 

“Hang on,” she says, standing and moving away. He loses her after only a few feet. Bleach and alcohol, a faint tang of ozone. Rubber and metal as she returns pushing a wheelchair in front of her. It stops inches from him; he maps out what he can reach with his fingertips, the throbbing of the now-silent scanner still echoing in his head. Matt tries to use his own strength rather than hers to maneuver himself into the seat. An optimistic goal, and he’s covered in sweat by the time that he’s settled. “All right?” she asks, her gloves finding his pulse again.

 

Clinical but not cold, those fingers. “Yeah.” The assurance comes so quickly that even he doesn’t believe it. “So, m’I gonna live?” And that was supposed to sound like more of a joke.

 

She releases the brake on the chair, and the room swirls around his head as he’s wheeled into a u-turn. “Looks like it,” Claire says, over his swallowed moan. “But I’d feel a lot better hooking you up to some of these expensive machines for a while to be sure.”

 

"Wanna go home.” It’s cranky, the whine of a child. The truth, but he hadn’t intended to blurt it out like that. They pass through the doorway, and the corridor unfurls in either direction; he’s trying, but keeping everything out takes a focus that he doesn’t really have. Matt fights to sit up instead of burying his aching head in his hands. “Claire, please…” There’s got to be something, some way to explain it to her. “I can’t be here.”

 

The chair jerks to a halt, with a squeak of the wheels and a shudder that travels the length of his frame. “Why not? If someone’s looking for you, Matt, we can talk to hospital security. Give them a description and –”

 

The past oozes through the cracks in his present, and for a long moment all other knowledge is blotted out by the thought of the kid they’d taken. He can’t recall exactly who _they_ are in this wet fugue, but clearly he needs to get out there and find them. He’d slipped up, giving over the advantage the last time – and this headache won’t let him forget it – but he won’t be so careless again. _Get out of here, get the kid_. Even vague as it is, it feels the most well rounded plan he’s had all day.

 

But first he has to get out of this chair, and there’s a hand on his shoulder that seems absolutely determined to keep him down. It’s difficult to get out from under it, struggling as he is to hold onto some kind of invented sense of orientation as the air moves around him. The floor is as far away as the ceiling and everything’s swinging, and his mental marker looks less like a compass and more like a cross.

 

He can’t say why this strikes him as funny. Seems like the kind of thing Stick would usually have an opinion on, but there’s nothing.

 

“Matt, _stop_.” Latex, talc. A hint of vanilla. Claire. “Where are you going?”

 

He doesn’t realize that his eyes are burning until he closes them against the artificial breeze in the hallway; it tickles over the hairs on his bare arms, his lower legs, and he suddenly feels incredibly exposed. Matt tries to let the details of Claire color themselves in without allowing his attention to spill over her lines into the rest of the hospital. It’s her hand on his shoulder. She’s in front of him now.

 

Expectantly, as if he’s supposed to say something. _Where are you going?_ Matt presses the heel of a hand to his forehead, like he might be able to force his thoughts back in line. Courthouse? He has to meet Foggy? This doesn’t sound right. _Save the kid_. No. Claire says his name – again? – and he’s horrified to hear his own voice admit in a whisper that he doesn’t actually know.

 

“Now tell me again why you don’t think you need to be here?”

 

"Because..." None of the reasons ring completely true. All of them do. “It’s… it’s too much, Claire.” He’s not sure if this is an explanation anyone else can understand. He wants to go home. To an environment more controllable, more comfortable. If nobody needs him to be anywhere, he really just wants to sleep.

 

She’s facing him, bending close and breathing on his skin; he focuses on the rhythm of her respirations as she studies him, and by the time she’s relented and straightened he’s almost managed to calm his own to matching it. “I’m not off tonight until late,” she warns, pushing the chair back into motion. “Can one of your friends keep an eye on you until then?”

 

He scowls at this thinly-veiled implication of helplessness. “Just gonna sleep. Don’t need a babysitter.”

 

“And if you decide to go running off god knows where like you almost did a second ago?” She’s frustrated, bordering on upset; her voice crosses its arms over her chest even though he knows that her hands must be on the chair. “Come on, Matt. You know how this works. Concussion. I’d feel better if there was somebody around until I can come by.”

 

“Not gonna…” Even as he protests, he’s trying to remember where he’d been going. Where they’re going now. “Uh…”

 

Claire wheels him around the stupid syllable, leaving it behind them on the floor. He worries that it’ll be lonely. Trod on. That they should go back for it.

 

“Maybe I should talk to your friend Foggy. From what I’ve seen of the two of you so far, I’m thinking he might be the sensible one.”

 

"S'not fair," he exhales. Her tone has relaxed its stance a little; Matt searches for the same note to his. “Only see me at my worst.”

 

"Don't I wish that wasn’t the truth," Claire says. He’s probably imagining the amount of regret that shadows it.

 

She pushes him through another doorway. It’s a small room empty of people but crowded by boxy shapes – most of them humming along at a steady voltage and smelling of the same antiseptic that covers every surface – which he slowly recognizes as the same place he’d started when they’d arrived here. She stops the chair beside the bed that takes up the center, and hands him a lump of fabric that his fingers identify as his clothes. His glasses are on top; he puts them on and instantly feels better. Comforted, more stable. Protected from prying eyes. The metal curtain rings clink together as she tugs at the privacy curtain.

 

“Do you need help getting dressed?”

 

“I’ve got it.” It’s too gruff to be reassuring. “M’okay. Thanks,” he adds, taking care to round the edges. He finds his fingers repetitively twisting one of the shirt buttons; he’s in danger of snapping it off. He fights to keep his hand still on top of the pile in his lap.

 

“I’m going to get your paperwork ready. If you need me, the call button’s on the bed.”

 

Matt thanks her one more time, tracks her footsteps through the door. The curtain resettles. He manages to wiggle back into his trousers without getting out of the wheelchair, but it takes most of his energy. He’s sweating, sick. And the world’s starting that fuzzy tingling thing again.

 

He puts his head down on the bed on the pillow of his arm, the room crumbling away from him like fistfuls of sand. It sifts through his grasp; he’s falling. But he’s not. There’s the cotton sheet covering the mattress, the taut leather and metal of the chair. The bare arm his forehead rests on, slick skin against skin. Not falling. Not on the floor. Just past the curtain, the open door, two nurses discuss their dinner plans. The details of the corridor spiral into focus around them – a trilling phone, hurried steps; industrial cleaner and perfume and vomit – and Matt drags his attention back into his little room. It’s easier to do with the insulating buzzing that’s blanketing everything.

 

It fades gradually. Leaves him weak, heavy. He knows he needs to lift his head, finish getting dressed, but exhaustion tricks him into giving up a few minutes more. It outweighs the discomfort of the scratchy gown that still covers his chest and shoulders, of his cold toes. Matt realizes that he’s expecting Stick to say something only when he doesn’t.

 

He wonders where Stick’s hiding. Probably sharing a flask with Sister Mary Elizabeth.

 

His body jerks when her hand lands lightly between his shoulders; another curls around his wrist. She’s caught him. She’ll be angry. Except the fingers seem longer, deceptively gentle, and instead of starch and soap there’s a tease of vanilla. Coffee and the buttery taste of unscented lotion. It’s wrong. But he knows for certain that he’ll be in trouble for having been found napping; he forces himself to sit up too quickly, and chokes on the dissolving grains of sand.

 

“Easy,” Sister Mary Elizabeth says in Claire’s voice. The room begins to clump itself back together and he hears the soles of her sneakers squeak on the floor. The tearing of velcro coming apart. Something wraps around his arm – blood pressure cuff, not a restraint; _calm down_ – and he counts the puffs of air as it tightens. A pen scratches across a sheet of paper. The pressure encircling his arm eases in tiny increments.

 

“Matt?” He’s always liked the way his name sounds when she says it, has from the very first time. So much better than “Mike,” clouded with her associations and just another mask between them. “Okay?”

 

“Yeah.” The band is removed from his arm; Claire makes a noise that tells him that they’re both wondering why she bothers to ask. “Can I go home?”

 

“Does my answer to that actually matter?”

 

"Not really."

 

“Great. Why did you come here at all?”

 

He wants to get the horrible hospital gown off. Like _yesterday_. His fingers fumble for the ties in the back. “Not m’idea. Foggy.” He’s slumped forward now, his words directed into the clothes in his lap, and still his flopping hand can’t find the ties. Building frustration only makes the search more erratic.

 

“Here.” Claire stops the motion of his hand; the bows slide out of their shapes, the itchy material slips away from his shoulders. He remains like this for a moment, enjoying the sensation of the air over his exposed skin. His shirt feels impossibly wrinkled under his fingers. “Nice to know there’s _someone_ whose advice you’ll listen to.”

 

Matt remembers not really having a choice. And that there’d been an ulterior motive to his acquiescence. “Foggy. D’you see him? Is he okay?”

 

She nudges him upright, pulls the hated gown off over his arms in movement more fluid than his tenuous balance can appreciate. There’s a wisp of wind as she tosses it onto the bed, and the collared shirt disappears from his fingers. A couple of sharp cracks as she tries to shake the creases out.

 

“Are we talking about the bruise on his face? I didn’t ask.” The stiff cuff of a sleeve is angled around one of his hands, the bunched material tugged smooth up the length of his arm. “What, did you guys get in a fight or something?”

 

Matt flinches; Claire’s hands freeze. Her heartbeat speeds up though her voice slows down. “What happened?” All humor evaporated, her tone carefully casual.

 

He’s half in and half out of his shirt; he’d put some distance between them if the brake wasn’t holding the wheel of the chair in place. But there’s nowhere for him to go. Head hanging, he obstinately squirms his way into the other sleeve on his own. It’s an effort. His hands tremble as he works to do up the buttons.

 

Stalling. He knows it. She knows it. “Matt?”

 

“I, uh… m’not really sure.” It’s a mumble. And a lie. He’s not paying enough attention; he gets to the bottom of his shirt to find that the buttons are misaligned. With an annoyed growl, he unfastens them and starts over. “I thought…” The sentence drifts away.

 

He’s already missed another buttonhole. Back, again. Getting dressed isn’t usually this difficult.

 

“You thought…?”

 

It seems like such a long time ago. The alley, the courthouse. He’d been trying to protect Foggy. He may or may not say this aloud; it sounds embarrassing enough in his head. Another attempt at lining up the buttons proves futile. Perplexing.

 

Clearly this shirt is defective. Though he doesn’t remember there being a problem with it this morning.

 

Claire offers her assistance. He wants to insist on doing it himself – reflexive, the principle of the thing – but decides to let her see if she can make any sense of it. If only to keep from being here all day. Her fingers are efficient; freed from their latex and clever enough to decipher the secret to the shirt, she quickly accomplishes what he was beginning to think an impossibility. “He seemed fine. Worried about you,” she assures him, adjusting his collar. It feels an unnecessary gesture, and oddly intimate. “But I’ll see if I can get a look. You ready for me to bring them back here?”

 

He’s tired of trying to force the events of today into order. Tired of the sticky smell of disinfectant. Matt wonders what time it is, whether he’ll have a chance to sleep for a bit before going out on patrol. He doesn’t ask; the thought of simply standing is met with an absurd preemptive vertigo. Tonight – however far away that might be – isn’t going to be fun.

 

Claire’s waiting for something. An answer. “Sure,” Matt says, plucking a word randomly from the dark. Her question repeats in his mind a beat later, and the two seem to match up.

 

“I need you to sign this. Standard discharge form. I could read it…?”

 

Matt coughs out a laugh. “I trust you, Claire.” He does, obviously he does. But mostly he just doesn’t care. Not right now. Not through this incessant pounding in his skull. He’ll sign anything she says is required – absolutely no questions and with a smile – if it means getting out of here. “Where?”

 

He holds out his hands and receives a clipboard and pen. It’s easy enough to find her thumb resting purposefully on the paper, to scrawl some form of his signature below it. Harder to keep his arms from shaking as he gives the items back. His muscles are useless, out of his control; Claire doesn’t comment.     

 

Instead she says, “I’ll go get your friends.” Leaves with his signature and his train of thought. Matt debates putting on the suit coat that lies draped across his lap, before deciding that it sounds like far too much trouble. He wonders what happened to his tie.

 

Somebody’s sobbing, a terrible fractured noise. It heaves down the hallway, surging in waves against the walls. Foggy and Karen enter the room abruptly, with the false cheer of a shopping mall at Christmas time. The contrast is startling. His brain scrambles to reset; there’s something of a gap before his face can find the appropriate expression for this new situation. It’s a shadow of a smile at best, but at least it feels like he got it right.

 

“Ready to go home?” Foggy’s voice seems to be floating from more than one direction, from points that in no way correspond to his path through the cramped space. The brake’s still snug on the chair – low in the back on a piece of medical equipment like this, difficult to twist around and try to reach it himself – and Matt can’t turn to face him. Not in this thing. He’ll get up.

 

But he can’t figure out how to make his legs work – focus on one invariably leads to losing track of the other – and now Foggy’s behind him. Close. A hand on Matt’s shoulder that might be coincidental, supportive rather than restraining. He hears Foggy’s shoe slide over the thick plastic of the brake as he kicks it off; it takes a few minutes, but Matt relaxes a little. Stays where he is.

 

Too bad the room refuses to do the same. It liquefies when Foggy steers him into a tight turn, melting to splash all over the floor with an irregular scattered beat. Like the first moments of a rainstorm. Distracting, and Foggy’s midway through another sentence before Matt tunes back in. “… should know?”

 

Claire’s here too; Matt listens more to the shape of her words than their meaning. A handful sneak through – _fluids, confusion, orientation_ and _after my shift_ – but there’s no real inclination to tie them together, and he allows them to waft where they will. Closes his eyes behind the opaque lenses of his glasses, lets them talk on over the top of his head. Karen hovers about to his left, an anxious firefly with nowhere to land.

 

In the hallway, the sobbing swells.    

 

 

* * *

 

 

His watch and Foggy’s are a fraction out of sync, the ticking of the second hands leapfrogging over one another. Now that he’s noticed it, it’s all that he can hear. _Ticktick. Ticktick._ Squeezing between each breath. _Ticktick. Ticktick._ Under the hum of the traffic surrounding them. _Ticktick. Ticktick._ Shaping itself into the sound of the indicator light. _Ticktick. Ticktick._

 

The driver takes a hard left, and Matt slips across the vinyl seatback into Foggy’s shoulder. An uncontrolled slump, and he can feel his friend’s surprise. “Matt?” It’s calm, doesn’t waver. Even if the rest of him does.

 

“Mmm…” At some point, it seems, he’d lost the ability to form real words. Foggy’s no more comforted by this than Matt is; the muscles around his shoulder shift as Foggy twists his neck to get a look at him. Matt knows he should really lift his head, make an effort. He doesn’t want to. He’s not even entirely sure when they got into this cab.

 

_Ticktick. Ticktick._

 

Foggy is substance and solidity, and he smells better than the odors meandering up from the floorboards; everything feels sticky, even if he’s not touching anything. Good arguments, Matt thinks, for remaining where he is. He tries to share this reasoning with Foggy – with Karen, with the driver – but it comes out a hopeless jumble of syllables. Immediately he wishes that he could take them all back. They crowd the inside of the car with their nonsense.

 

“We’ll be there soon,” Foggy says. It only shakes a little bit.

 

“S’okay. M’okay.” He just wants to sleep this headache away. Though it might work in his favor: maybe when Sister Mary Elizabeth finally tracks him down, she’ll take pity on him if he’s in pain. It’s unlikely. She’s not known for being particularly sympathetic, especially at this hour.

 

No, wait – it’s daytime. He’s in a cab, an adult. And Sister Mary Elizabeth is probably dead.

 

This last thought bounces around his brain; it feels scandalously sacrilegious. His hand moves automatically into a penitent Sign of the Cross, but it’s a feeble and incomplete gesture with his forehead on Foggy’s shoulder. Unnecessarily guilty when it’s most likely a fact, an inevitability of the years that have passed.

 

He pushes down a childish fear that the thought alone might have been enough to kill her.

 

“So I’m thinking pirates,” Foggy says, out of nowhere. Matt blinks behind his glasses, wondering what he’s missed. “The fun swashbuckly kind, that is, not the terrifying modern day ones.”

 

“What?” He’s a bit pleased with himself. It’s an entire word.

 

“The bruises. Pirates.”

 

“What?” Unfortunately it’s also apparently the only word Matt still knows. And his mind is absurdly reluctant to let it go.

 

“Or we stopped a bank robbery. Wrong place, wrong time, but heroically we saved the day.” Foggy’s talking too quickly; barely, but it prevents his tone from achieving the nonchalant note it’s seeking. “But, before you vote, I should tell you that I’m partial to the pirates.”

 

“Pirates,” Matt echoes, not really sure what he’s agreeing to. If he cooperates, maybe they’ll let him off this boat.

 

"What, did they attack the courthouse?" Karen asks. She sounds amused.

               

Matt has no idea why; he’s sitting up now, struggling to find his balance. If the people at the courthouse are in danger, they have to get over there. He doesn’t have the costume with him, but –

 

“Home,” Foggy’s voice cuts through his head. “We’re on the way to your apartment, buddy. There’s nothing wrong at the courthouse. I swear. We were kidding.”

 

_Oh_. This explains the laughter, at least; those two usually go together. Matt allows his forehead to return to the steady wall of Foggy’s shoulder. He wonders if there’s any way to get the timing of their watches to match up again.

 

The ride is lengthened by a tense silence in the car; Matt’s not sure when it started, but it prickles over his skin. Up and down his neck, along the curves of his scalp. He can’t find its source. Can’t find the words to break it.

 

Eventually he gives up.

 

Somewhere in the trip – and the driver must be following his own set of unique directions, because no way was the hospital this far from his place – his head ends up against the window, his position more vertical. The glass is cool, smooth against his face, but it rattles with each revolution of the wheels. The world pulses red in time with his heartbeat, and every turn lurches through him with a rubberband snap of momentum. There’s something caught in the undercarriage; tiny, inconsequential. Maybe forced against the tires, being constantly shifted to keep reluctant time with the shivering window glass. It almost sounds like a quacking. _Ducks_.

 

Central Park, a pond, and the sound of them filling the air to paint a picture even if he couldn’t see the shine of the sun on their feathers. Sitting with Foggy, enjoying the tentative warmth of a spring afternoon. Or had that been with his dad? The memory yellows and curls a little at the edges when Matt finds he can’t say for certain.

 

The vibrations of the window jiggle through teeth and bone to jar the wound on the other side of his skull. He remembers Claire mentioning that she would have probably put in a stitch or two had he come to her last night when it’d happened. Or thinks he remembers; maybe he’s imagined this. Because it sounds like something she’d say. It might not be ducks, that quacking. Higher pitched, more of a squeaking, and it’s possible it’s a loose spring instead. In the seat?

 

He’s not able to tell. He should be able to tell. The rattling’s making him nauseous, crawling through him like an insect on a hundred wriggling legs.

 

“Okay?” Foggy asks. Matt makes a vague noise that’s meant to be an affirmative. He swallows, wishes it felt more like the truth.

 

The driver sees an obstacle ahead, slams to a stop without warning; Matt goes face-first into the back of the passenger seat before the chain of events can register or hope to elicit any kind of a response. It takes a while for the flickering stars to recede into the darkness. When they do, the cab is moving again.

 

The driver grumbles about seatbelts. Preemptive defensiveness overshadowing any hint of concern.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In the dream, Foggy is a six-foot rabbit that only Matt can see. Or maybe merely dressed as one. Until he’s not, shrinking and morphing and now wearing the Daredevil’s costume instead. There’s a crowd here, too – mute, shuffling – but as far as he can tell everyone’s just milling around. Self-absorbed.

 

Until they’re not.

 

The figures in the alley turn as one, turn on Foggy. Converging on his friend, swamping him. Attacking with fists and feet; Matt can’t get a sense of him any more, surrounded by that wall of angry flesh. He tries to get to him but the cement slides by underneath, a moving sidewalk powered by a motor of nightmare logic. It keeps him maddeningly stationary, despite the exertion that’s chewing his muscles.

 

A yell presses his lungs against the interior wall of his chest, taking up too much space to allow them to properly inflate. Claws at his throat but can’t manage an escape, even fueled as it is by such desperation. It follows him out of the dream and into the world, into his bedroom. Finds substance – _freedom_ , bursting and brief – in a choked moan that seems to echo in the silence.

 

Wisps of delusory cobwebs cling to his shoulders, his face, and he sits up with a hazy plan to get away from them. The room sloshes about on either side of his raft of a bed – changing blood flow, and if he could just concentrate he could feel it, track it, measure it – and though he tries to hang on, wait it out, the ocean douses him with an icy wave. The staggered route into his bathroom is one carved deep into kinetic memory. One that thankfully needs no conscious input from him.

 

The retching aggravates his ribs, what must surely be a literal crack split into his skull. The linoleum bites into his knees. It’s a pointless battle on behalf of his body, since he can’t recall the last time he ate anything; this thought is enough ammunition to wage another brutal but futile skirmish in the campaign. Nothing will stay still – not the ground, not the air, not his thoughts – and he’s too consumed with how wretched he feels to notice any more motion in all that’s already there.

 

So it’s unexpected when Foggy’s voice precedes him through the open doorway. “Matt…? Oh. Sorry, man.”

 

Matt acknowledges the sympathy, the awkwardness, with a noise that’s somewhere between a grunt and a groan. He’s searching for a tenable position in which he can hold his head, testing through a series of minute readjustments; this mythical position seems not to exist, every angle as painful and disorienting as any other. He decides that he might as well be uncomfortable back in bed. The bowl’s empty except for some spit, a bit of bile, but he flushes anyway. A bad idea. The water is a roar so near to his ears.

 

He uses the counter to haul himself to his feet, uses it to keep himself upright once he finally gets there. He can’t remember going to bed – if he’s honest, their arrival at the apartment is mostly missing too – isn’t sure if he’s supposed to know that Foggy had hung around. Or returned. He has no idea what time it is.

 

“Can I do anything?” Foggy asks from the door. Matt risks losing the support of one arm just long enough to make a dismissive gesture with that hand. Back to the counter.

 

He’s judging his balance, plotting his path to the other room. It takes a while. But he only stumbles once on the way out, his careful focus shattered when the reek of scorched coffee suddenly breaks over him. He realizes that the air of the apartment is drenched with it. “Forget to turn off your coffee?” Matt jabs, unable to suppress his annoyance.

 

“Not me, my friend.” Foggy trails him the distance to the bed. “Funny, I don’t remember you having a problem with that.”

 

“Still don’t. First time it’s happened.” The truth, but Matt’s easily as unnerved as his friend is pretending not to be. Had he not deactivated his presets? Made a pot this morning before court and simply walked away? He doesn’t know. Only a mistake, and one that he tells himself could have happened to anyone. Doesn’t mean he’s incapable, that he can’t take care of himself. Even if he can’t say right now whether or not this is actually still the same day.

 

He finds the mattress with his knees, crawls over the mess of his silk sheets toward a guess at its center. A barely controlled descent sprawls him there, and he listens idly to his neighbor banging around on the opposite side of their one shared wall. Not angry, but unflagging. It’s been going on for days now. It has the definite sense of a quest for something specific, but what that is – and the exact nature of the items being continuously rearranged – Matt’s been unable to figure out. It seems impossible that they could have so much stuff to move.

 

“What time is it?” he mumbles into the sheets. Because it feels like he should care.

 

Foggy sits on the bed, dipping the mattress into a shallow depression. It momentarily seems a crater that Matt fears he might tumble into. “I think I’m supposed to ask you that.”

 

“How would I know?” God his head hurts. “How long … long v’you been here?”

 

“A few hours,” Foggy says. It doesn’t give Matt any practical information, but he lost interest in the answer the moment he’d managed to get out the question. “Do you know where you are?”

 

“Huh?” It’s stupid; of course he does. He’s in his apartment, being battered by the unidentifiable symphony of his neighbor’s obsessive redecoration. How many possible combinations of object placement can there be? It’s going on way too long to be some amateur attempt at feng shui. He’s got to be looking for something.

 

_He? She?_ Matt can’t recall who lives over there. Doesn’t have the resources to try and work it out.

 

“Okay – not exactly the answer I was hoping for, Matt. Crap, I shouldn’t have said that. What if you didn’t remember your name until I told you? Now I can’t ask that one, because you might just be cheating and repeating the answer… though I guess if you can’t, that would be an answer in itself…”

 

There’s more, but Matt’s registered what’s happening. And how worried Foggy sounds. “Fog. S’okay. Stop.” There’s an extended scraping sound from next door. What _is_ that? Is he moving furniture? “M’here.” No, that’s not really right. His voice rumbles unpleasantly through his head, but he tries again. “I know. I… M’okay,” The silk envelops the words. Swallows them.

 

“Yeah, well… I’m not sure your opinion is the one we should trust here.”

 

“S’fine. Thank you. Go home.” He wants the silence back. Hadn’t it been quieter when he’d woken up? If he could just get a little more sleep, a few more hours… He’s got to get up soon anyway. He should find out what time it is.

 

“Sorry. I promised Claire I’d stay.”

 

“I’ll tell her… did.” The only chance at palliation seems to lie in not shifting his head – eyebrows, eyeballs, lips, cheekbones – at all; the side of his face feels smashed into an odd contortion against the sheets under the limp weight of his skull. The silk is damp where it pushes its way between his lips, where he drools on it. “Go ‘way.”

 

“I’m going to get you a book on etiquette. Being a better host.”

 

“Can you get me water first?”

 

“I can.” The mattress tilts, tips, as Foggy rises; he leaves, and Matt drifts in his absence. The neighbor shuffles more nameless items around. An indistinct conversation begins. It sounds like it’s originating from his kitchen.

 

Sister Mary Elizabeth? Karen. Now it sounds like it’s coming from next door. If Karen’s still here, maybe he should move out into the other room; apparently Foggy’s not too far off in his estimation of Matt’s hosting skills. His fingers tell him he’s wearing sweatpants, a t-shirt – the angle and length of the tiny notch in the tag at his neck confirms this, tells him that the shirt should be blue – not excessively inappropriate attire for company. Especially if they’re the sort who would camp out uninvited in his living room.

 

He doesn’t want to get up.

 

Foggy returns before a final decision is made; he’s alone. Matt suddenly can’t remember where he left the costume, if he’d put it away when he’d changed last night. _Was it only last night?_ Surely he had, habit taking over even if he wasn’t thinking straight. But then there’s the coffee. So maybe not.

 

“Where are you going? I brought you water.”

 

The floor is cold against his bare feet, the icy pain it spreads up from his soles merely an annoyance in its addition. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, but there’s a blank space when he looks for the motions that got him here. He’s really thirsty. A sour taste coating his tongue.

 

“I know,” Foggy says. “Hence the water.”

 

A cylindrical shape with the length of an arm behind it floats in the air by Matt’s temple. He’d reach for it, but he’s afraid to release his grip on the edge of the mattress. Might fall off, the way everything’s pitching around. Now the glass is in his hand. _How did that happen?_ The water’s lukewarm, and he can’t feel its path down his throat.

 

Hydration brings with it a flirtation at clarity; he remembers the costume, its uncertain whereabouts. He’s standing before he registers the intention of doing so.

 

The world drops away.

 

Fades back in to the awareness of a hand wrapped too tightly around his arm, just above the elbow. The glass disappearing from his fingers. Foggy easily directs him back down to sit on the bed – not difficult when he’s so unsteady, when he’s without any strength with which to build a basis for resistance – and Matt hangs his head and tries not to throw up. “You may as well get comfortable,” Foggy says; he sounds tired. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere tonight.”

 

Matt doesn’t bother to argue this. He’ll give it a few hours – _what time is it?_ – and get rid of his company. What Foggy doesn’t know won’t hurt him. “S’Karen?” he asks instead. It’s slurred, but he’s fairly impressed that he got it out at all. His tongue feels swollen, clumsy.

 

“She left. You wouldn’t stop calling her Sister Mary Ellen or something.”

 

“I… what?” There’s no recollection of talking to Karen, no clues as to what he might have said. A hole that’s flavored with anxiety, and the air’s gotten thicker, pressing in. It’s taken on a tinny, distant ring.

 

“I’ll be honest: she wasn’t thrilled. Sure, it was a little funny at first…” The sentence wanders away; Matt’s having trouble remembering how to breathe, barely notices. Not gasping yet – _in, out, hold it together ohgodwhatdidIsay_ – but every respiration feels frighteningly artificial. Superficial. Wrong.

 

“… wasn’t until you launched into what sounded like a surprisingly coherent lecture on urban self-defense that I actively started encouraging her to leave.” Foggy finishes. “It seemed like the wisest course of action.” Matt groans, pinches the bridge of his nose. Foggy still has a grip on his other arm; his tone is several shades lighter than the stormy tension that the lingering connection implies.

 

“What else?’ The question grates up Matt’s throat. Almost doesn’t make it past his teeth. None of the memories floating to the front of his addled mind is anything he’d want to share. Not with Karen, certainly not babbling and without context. Foggy hasn’t even heard most of them.

 

_Sister Mary Elizabeth standing behind him, silent. There’s no hint as to what she expects from him, even as her expectation is clear; she breathes down onto the top of his head, on the sensitive skin of the part in his hair. Sister Mary Elizabeth, making her rounds after the lights are out. The jangling of her keys announces her, as does the slight drag of her left foot when she walks; Matt scrubs at his eyes and holds his breath as he feigns sleep, hoping she won’t get close enough to see the tear tracks stiffening on his face._

 

_Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep And if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take._

 

If he dies here, where will they bury him? When it’s stiflingly warm, in the summer, she has no choice but to leave at least one of the windows open. They sleep on the first floor; he’s climbed out more than once to explore the old church graveyard. Mapped out its borders, tripped over the ubiquitous roots that crack up through the ground. There was no one to ask, but he’d gotten the sense that there wasn’t any room left to bury anyone new here. If not at the church, then maybe near his dad? They’d dragged him away, dropped him off here and forgotten him; if there was any kind of a service, no one had told him about it.

 

It would be years before he’d know what had ultimately happened to his father’s body. “W’else did I say?” He intends the words to be audible, but doesn’t think he accomplishes it.

 

When Foggy actually responds, Matt’s startled into raising his head. “Don’t worry. Not much of it was incredibly comprehensible. Though I am starting to wonder what it is you’re so obviously concerned that we found out. No more secrets, Matt. That was the deal.”

 

_You can’t keep secrets from God, Matthew. He knows all of your sins._

 

Matt tries to pull his arm out of Foggy’s bruising grasp; after a moment he relents, lets go. Matt squirms back to horizontal. It’s a position still uncomfortable, but the one requiring the least amount of effort. “Secrets from Karen,” he protests, in what feels a reasonable attempt at salvage. “The costume…” The costume. What about the costume? His neighbor has given up the search for another day. The rattling had been so intrusive, so irritating, but he can’t say for sure when it ended.

 

“What about it?” Foggy’s voice circles the bed; the water glass makes a solid noise as its base finds the bedside table. “I know you’re not asking me to get it for you.”

 

“She see it?” he asks into the sheets. He doesn’t care. Yes he does.

 

“Of course not. I mean, you definitely need to tell her; it’s messed up to keep lying to her like this, and you know it. But I’m not making that decision for you.”

 

It’s not an argument that Matt feels up to having right now. His heart pounds in his temple, his jaw, the cavity between his ear and throat. _Nasopharynx_ , his brain supplies unhelpfully; he wonders why it can come up with this, but so little else. There’s the faintest rustle of silk in response to every pulse, his heartbeat punching through his skin.

 

It’s driving him crazy. But he doesn’t really have the energy to move.

 

“Should g’home,” he slurs, maybe not for the first time. Forming whole words is strangely exhausting. ”We…” A breath. Trying again. “… court t’morrow?” What time is it? Where’s his _phone_? Matt can’t remember when he’d last had it; a flare of adrenaline almost gets him back up. Almost. “… phone…” he hears himself mumble instead. It’s a ghosting impression of his usual voice, and not quite a question. More like he’s hoping to summon the thing to him by calling to it.

 

Foggy misses this, under his snort of an unamused laugh. “No, Matt. No court tomorrow.”

 

Recent memories dangle around him in the dark like the frayed ends of broken threads; he doesn’t reach for them. It’s obvious that there’s something he’s supposed to be understanding in Foggy’s words, but once he realizes this he’s already forgotten their order. Why is Foggy still here? He should really go home.

 

“Say that another twenty times or so, and I might start to develop a complex. It’s like you don’t want me around.” The duvet becomes a living thing, jerking and twitching as Foggy tugs it out from under his legs. He pulls it over Matt’s body, remolding the bed to accommodate his new fallen angles. “And I _know_ that’s not true.”

 

The blanket settles around him with a sigh. It’s pleasantly warm beneath it, and if he stays completely still he can trick himself into ignoring the pain for entire seconds at a time. “S’not true,” Matt agrees. “But go ‘way.”

 

“No can do, my friend; you’re stuck with me for a while longer. Promises were made. And if I’ve learned anything at all in my tumultuous dealings with another lady I’m too much of a gentleman to name, it’s that you never break a promise to a formidable woman. Not if you value keeping your anatomy intact.”

 

“Might take out y’r tonsils,” Matt mumbles. Trying to participate.

 

“Was that a joke? That almost sounded like a joke.”

 

“Maybe.” He’s forgotten what they’re talking about again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He dreams of a bank robbery taking place in the courthouse, giant safes sitting where the metal detectors should be. He knows this despite being too far away to be able to truly discern it. When the shouting starts, he’s up on the third floor.

 

It’s coming from the lobby; Matt takes the stairs. He careens down them – tripping, tumbling – cut off from the action by these walls, by these steps made of concrete. They must be. They’re so cold. He can feel their chill through his shoes; such an unimportant thing, but he’s finding it hard to focus. He hears what he’s positive is a car horn, a weird sound in this otherwise well-insulated stairwell.

 

Doesn’t matter: he’s nearing the lobby. The air is cooler down here, so near to the main entrance. He makes a pointless attempt to see the space, the people in it, before depressing the wide metal bar waiting under his fingers. More wasted minutes. It’s like there’s nothing beyond this thick door. He knows the layout, has been through it plenty of times, but when he reaches for the memory he finds it eroded and shifting. All he can come up with is lofty ceilings, ringing marble. Echoes and openness and a complete lack of cover. If he exits out of this door, it’s likely that he’ll be spotted instantly.

 

He’s stuck, swaddled by doubt. But he can’t just stay like this. Hiding here. Matt cracks the door, readying himself to move; as soon as he can pick a direction, he’s going. But the lobby is oddly silent. All whispers and strange angles.

 

There: the impression of a figure darting past, near the front doors. Matt ducks back into the stairwell, but there’s no resulting uproar, no approaching attack force headed his way. He takes a breath, tries again. The lobby sits inexplicably empty.

 

Smaller than it should be as he crosses it, too. Undulating and ill-defined. He has no explanation for where the people have gone, for how the chaos could have so completely dissipated. It’s baffling. He stumbles toward the doors, toward the only sign of life he’s detected; if there are answers to be had, this seems his most likely opportunity to get them. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. His legs drag like he’s wading through water.

 

It smells like carpet cleaner, the same one they use in his apartment building. Which makes no sense, because there aren’t any carpets in the lobby of the courthouse. Even stranger is the doorknob he finds he has to twist to get out; Matt’s _positive_ these front doors should be automatic. But the chain of his thoughts is joined with delicate links, and it crumbles when he steps outside.

 

_Focus. Find him._

 

Find…? A breeze blows past, slipping frigid fingers through clothes to his skin.  

 

_Find him. Look._ Matt searches for any hint that someone came through this way. But there are far too many, and he’s having trouble deciding which are the most recent. He needs to move away from the entrance, to put some distance between himself and this morass of tracks. These ghosts clogging the air. They’re swarming into his ears, his nose, muffling everything to leave him truly blind. Suffocating him, if he lets them. He should head for the street.

 

It’s more of a plan than he’s had to this point, and it gets him moving in what feels to be a relatively straight line. But the world wobbles. And the stairs arrive sooner than they’re scheduled.

 

Matt knows he should have at least fifteen feet more; it’s a shock when his next step comes down to find mostly emptiness. His heel slips off an edge, and reflex flails for any kind of a handhold as his legs go out from under him. Instinct jerks him just enough that he falls back rather than forward. He hits the ground hard, his spine screaming its protest along a multitude of nerves.

 

The impact leaves him stunned, confused. Combined with the smothering lassitude that’s weighing him down, it seems easier not to attempt to get up. At least not yet. What’s _wrong_ with him? He’s not usually this clumsy. Unaware. _What’s happening?_ He has no answers, can’t even sort out where he is.

 

He concentrates instead on controlling his breathing, on slowing the panting to something that sounds less like a dog in the summertime. Anything more complex than this sends his thoughts skittering away into the dark. When he finally manages to establish a more normal rhythm, he tries to take an internal inventory to check for injuries – he’s on the ground; didn’t he fall? – but midway through he forgets what he’s supposed to be looking for. His head throbs. It’s mimicked by his tailbone.             

 

“… your shoes? Mr Murdock? You listening to me?”

 

“What?” His lips move independently of his brain. But he knows this voice that comes out of nowhere, full and low and with honey dripping through its cracks. It doesn’t connect with the courthouse though, it belongs to… “Mrs Jameson?”

 

“Who else would I be? What’re you doing out here, son?” She doesn’t give Matt time to answer. “Sitting on the steps in the dark. Scare an old woman half to death.”

 

A resident of his building if not his floor, the first person he’d met when he’d moved in. He’d hired movers – could have done it himself, but it would have looked a bit suspicious – and she’d been downstairs when they first arrived. Waiting for her grandson, she’d said, a furniture delivery of her own; Matt had learned what seemed like everything about the kid but his favorite color before he’d shown up with the awaited armoire. “M’sorry.”

 

“Don’t need apologies, boy. Just need a path to the door so’s I can get inside and off these aching feet.”

 

Her grandson plays the saxophone. No – there’s someone playing a saxophone down the street. He’s outside. How did he get outside? He can smell the particular blend of spices in the curry made by the Indian restaurant around the corner, the favored incense that always seems to be leaking from the building next door. Snippets of conversations, barking dogs, traffic. How long has he been out here?

 

“I’m not as skinny as I used to be, son. Ain’t gonna be able to squeeze by you.”

 

Two streets over, a car comes to a sudden stop; Matt winces as the shriek of thinning brake pads stabs through to his brain. She wants him to move. He needs to stand up.

 

“You alright, Mr Murdock? There someone you need me to call?”

 

Somebody on the second floor is chopping onions, the blocky sound and pungent odor wafting out of a window. “No, I…” The stinging chill of the pavement feels like a burn on his feet. Is he _barefoot_? He can’t stop himself from wiggling his toes, finds no resistance. “’Scuse me. M’sorry,” Matt mumbles, reaching for the wrought-iron railing that guards either side of the stairs. He finds it with fingers, uses its solidity to climb to his feet. The movement, the new altitude, compresses his skull, sends everything wavering. His performance feels less than convincing as he clings to it.

 

Behind him the door to the building is flung open with force. Matt turns to face the motion that’s rushing their way. The world rocks violently around him, and he’s bitterly aware that he can’t protect her – _who?_ – like this. _Doesn’t matter. Find something you can use._ There isn’t much time. And there’s _nothing_. The nearest tree isn’t close enough to hope to find a quick weapon from its branches; the railing’s firm, doesn’t even jiggle. He’s going to have to let go of it if he wants to use his hands.

 

It isn’t until Foggy skids to an ungainly stop beside him that Matt recognizes his friend; Foggy’s sweating, practically gulping for air. “Hey, there you are,” he says, with a nonchalance so forced it’s ridiculous. Especially with all the gasping. “I was, uh, looking for you.”

 

“Who’re you?” Mrs Jameson challenges from further down the stairs. Matt can hear how fast her heart is racing, but there’s nothing in her tone to betray this. “Mr Murdock, you know this person?”

 

He wonders what Foggy must look like; his breath is faintly sour, like he just woke up. Matt has no idea what time it is, but he thinks he remembers that Mrs Jameson works late. Maybe. The saxophone’s sad song bends the breeze like crumpled velvet.

 

She’s waiting for an answer, ready to jump to his defense. Matt’s not sure exactly what that would entail, but he doesn’t want Foggy to have to be the one to find out. “I do. A friend.” His voice sounds foreign, stilted; keeping the sentences short is the best chance at preventing the words from running together. From bouncing out of order.

 

“Franklin, ma’am. Nelson,” Foggy stutters; things dip and tumble around in Matt’s head when he turns back that way in surprise. His fingers curl more tightly around the iron rail.

 

“Just that I never seen you,” she mutters. Somewhat soothed, but still skeptical. Her pulse has slowed a little, but it keeps a hard beat. Determined. Prepared for action.

 

Matt’s tongue is wrapped in cotton; he swallows, but there’s no moisture at all in his mouth. He feels like he should offer something else, more of an explanation to appease her. Possibilities flick by. None of them fully shaped, and his mouth chooses one without tasting it. “Avocados,” he hears himself say. He knows it’s wrong the moment it escapes.

 

“What?“ Her tone is a raised eyebrow, narrowed eyes. “What’re you boys up to? You using drugs?”

 

There’s a cicada in the bushes next to the steps. Loud and solitary. Calling for a mate? Demanding that they leave? He has no idea, but he wishes it would stop its shrill chirping.

 

"No, ma’am,” Foggy says immediately. “No drugs.” Somebody giggles. Matt presses his heavy tongue against the back of his teeth, afraid that it may have been him.

 

Foggy wraps a hand around his arm, and he realizes how cold he is only when it’s contrasted by this circle of warmth. Especially his feet. Is he not wearing shoes? Did he already know that? “Time to go,” Foggy suggests; there’s a tiny creak from his soles as his weight shifts more toward the door. “Two steps to the top,” he warns.

 

It’s an old habit. Matt hears the hiccup in his heartrate when he remembers that he doesn’t need to, never really did.

 

“Thanks,” he says, sincerely. With all the distortion in his head, he’s grateful not to have to figure it out for himself. He realizes now that his neighbor is still behind him, thinks he should at least say good night. Apologize, maybe, for being such a wreck. For preventing her from getting home. She’d been trying to get by, he recalls, though it seems as if weeks could have passed since then. Like they’ve always been out here. Doing this.

 

_Say something. Focus._

 

He turns to her – his mouth open, though he doesn’t know yet what he’ll say – and the motion swoops sideways his equilibrium. Foggy’s hold tightens, probably the only thing that keeps Matt from taking a header down the stairs. He clamps his jaw against a swell of nausea. Tries to hear through the blood pulsing thickly in his ears. _… hit… mugged…_ There’s a conversation going on without him.

 

Cicadas, onions, a lonely saxophone weeping in the wind. He wants to lie down. But they’re moving – at least he thinks they’re moving, that it’s not just his own skewed vantage – Foggy leading Matt toward what he slowly recognizes is the front door. Matt struggles not to lean into him, but he finds himself listing inexorably that way. His legs can’t find their normal sync; one of his bare feet comes down half on top of the other. He tries again, but doesn’t lift the foot high enough. Stubs his toe on the concrete walkway.

 

The door opens outward, a cool flush of air. Matt enters first but Foggy presses in close behind, apparently unwilling to release his grip. He’s too miserable to worry about anyone that might be gawking, making assumptions about his capabilities or lack thereof; he thinks the room is empty, but it shimmers oddly in the corners and he can’t say for certain. The carpet’s matted – a trampled trail that they follow to the elevator – Foggy in front now, dragging him along like they’re late for something.

 

_Are we?_

 

He’s pulled into the elevator, the door closing to seal them off before he can decide. The car announces its intention to move with a sickening lurch; Matt shuts his eyes, breathing shallowly, rapidly, beneath the rumbling that always accompanies its ascent. Though he doesn’t remember it ever being this _loud_. Oil, perfume, dirt, asphalt; fried chicken and curry and stale cigarette smoke. Grass, dog crap. The mingling body odors of a crowd’s worth of people. _Too much_. He can’t see through it.

 

Foggy’s voice whips out of the dark, exaggerated and oversized for the space. “What the hell, Matt? I woke up and you were _gone_.”

 

There’s no memory of leaving the apartment, but he must have since he ended up outside. This thought seems rational; the brief glimpse of rationality makes him feel a little more grounded. “Sorry,” he’s able to get out. Foggy must be exhausted, Matt realizes, if he’d managed to leave the apartment without waking him.

 

He doesn’t remember. There’s just something about a bank robbery. Dreamy and with no context.

 

“Like _nowhere_ ,” Foggy reiterates unnecessarily. “Seriously, I think I had a mini stroke.”

 

“Sorry,” Matt repeats. A mushy mumble. The pain in his head is fluctuating, blood vessel fingers stretching ice cold outward from his temple. Piercing his brain with their snaking multitude of tendrils. It makes him want to throw up.

 

“Where were you going anyway?” Foggy asks, as the elevator stops with a jerk. The abrupt halt sways through Matt, threatens never to stop; the hand on his arm spasms, readjusts for a firmer hold. He wonders if he’s going to have a bruise. Most days he’d be able to tell.

 

The door retreats along its track with a screech that feels malicious. How had he not noticed _that_ on the way down? Maybe he’d taken the stairs, or… oh god, did he go out the window? They’re moving again – _they left the elevator?_ – the carpet less flattened here, but still worn into a definite path.

 

“So?” Foggy prompts. Matt’s distracted by thoughts of synthetic fibers; Sister Mary Elizabeth cracks a ruler against the edge of her desk to match the snap in her voice. _Pay attention, Matthew_. “If you wanted something, I would’ve gone to get it. And you know you’re not wearing shoes, right?”

 

Another pebble skip in the flow of time, and they’re at his front door. “Yeah,” he answers, unsure how long it’s actually been since the question was asked. Entering his apartment is like slipping into a favorite sweatshirt; his shoulders, back, release the tiniest bit of their tension. The wood floor is beautifully smooth and unmangled under his feet. It feels polished, solid.    

 

“You just decided to go for a walk? With a concussion and no shoes?”

 

He doesn’t want to admit that he can’t explain. His lips are dry and scratchy when he presses them together; Matt reroutes his steps into his kitchen. Grabs a glass from the cabinet, fills it from the sink’s filtered tap. He drinks half of it before he realizes that he’s lost his shadow, that at some point Foggy had relinquished his hold. He’s a few feet away now, standing by the truncated wall that divides the kitchen from the rest of the room.

 

The water sits heavily in Matt’s empty stomach; he dumps the rest of it, leaves the glass in the sink. The burnt smell has faded somewhat, though this close to the coffee maker it’s still very present. He throws a sightless glare in the direction of the little machine. This does precisely nothing to resolve the issue.

 

“Do you even remember going outside? You don’t, do you.” It’s less of a question than a revelation. An unhappy one.

 

Matt pushes off the counter he’s slumped against, and the liquid inside his stomach sloshes around unpleasantly. “Can we just…” He doesn’t want to talk about it, especially not with this weak, unrecognizable voice. This crushing headache. “Later, okay?” It sounds ragged – and too close to a plea – but he trusts Foggy to fill in the blanks.

 

He’s more concerned with navigating this new tilt to his floor. An awkward, achingly slow shuffle seems to be his only option; it feels a speed at which he’ll never arrive. He’ll spend the rest of his days inching a path across this room, this apartment.

 

Foggy moves with him, keeping the unnatural pace. “Fine,” he says. “Later. But only because I’m such a considerate friend. And you’re all brain-damaged.”

 

It doesn’t feel inaccurate. At the moment it seems like his brain might be broken forever. Maybe it always has been. Maybe he’s been like this for a long time – trapped in an endless cycle of amnesia and confusion – and Foggy’s been forced to haunt this place like a ghost, tasking himself as Matt’s unflagging caretaker. The thought crawls up his spine. His lips instantly move to tell him he should go.

 

But Foggy walks over the words, if they were even outside his mind to begin with. “At least I can be sure that you’ve got neighbors looking out for you. How have I never met that woman?”

 

Mrs Jameson. Matt hadn’t said goodbye. Had he? Maybe that wasn’t even today, maybe Foggy’s talking about a different woman. But Matt remembers something else: “ _Franklin_.” It’s a wheeze.

 

“Yeah, well… you didn’t see her. I was terrified. Any second she was going to start throwing things at me.”

 

“…’d like her.” This part of the floor is dusty, slightly gritty under Matt’s bare feet. How recently had he cleaned in here? An automatic thought, but plainly ridiculous when he can’t track back ten minutes ago. He’s already forgotten to whom he’s referring.

 

“Probably,” Foggy agrees. “I do like lots of people.”

 

Hours later – and Matt’s certain, it has to have been _hours_ – they pass through the arch of the doorway into his bedroom. He wants nothing more than to collapse onto his sheets, but detours after a last second decision to first take a piss. He doesn’t plan to move again any time in the foreseeable future. When he comes out of the bathroom, he can’t immediately locate Foggy.

 

He finds him lying down, taking up half of Matt’s mattress. But the far side, and Matt doesn’t hesitate to claim the beckoningly vacant space right in front of him. “What’re y’doing?” he asks, as he melts into the bed. It feels amazing not to have to hold his head up anymore.

 

“You’re also getting a book about sharing,” Foggy says, his voice bouncing off the ceiling. He’s on his back; Matt’s bonelessly sprawled on his stomach, head turned toward him. “This seemed like the best way to be sure I’ll wake up if you go wandering again. Some of us actually need sleep, you know. Enjoy it, even.”

 

Matt usually has trouble sleeping with another body in his bed, overly conscious of every tic, breath, heartbeat; it’s difficult enough sleeping even in the same room with someone else. But this feels like a lot to convey. He makes an ambivalent sound through his closed lips, his exhale twitching the silk around his nose.

 

“So it’s either this or I sit awake in a chair at the foot of the bed all night. Which I will totally do. But this seems easier, plus it’s got the advantage of the whole sleep thing.”

 

“S’fine.” And it is. If it gets annoying, he’ll just go crash on the couch for a while.

 

“I will, however, entertain a discussion about switching sides,” Foggy babbles on. His pulse still races, mocking his cavalier tone. “If you’re picky.”

 

“Fog… s’okay. Go to sleep.” It’s an effort to get so many words out, and a few of them may be lost in the sheets. There’s a dog barking out in the street – rapid, angry – a sharp repetitive noise that stabs at Matt’s abused skull. He gropes around one-handed for a pillow, trying not to have to move anything other than his arm. Finds it, pulls it over his head.

 

“You first,” Foggy says. The pillow does little to actually block out sound.

 

But it muffles things a little, helps him to narrow his awareness to this room, this bed. And Foggy’s practically the definition of familiarity, so integral a part of his life for so long that his presence has been absorbed into Matt’s picture of normal. It’s nice just to lie here and listen to him breathe.

 

He’s sure that he won’t be able to sleep despite his own exhaustion, not with this beat in his head. He imagines it radiating pulsing sonar waves up to the ceiling, mixing with Foggy’s exhaled air. Amazingly, Foggy’s breathing is already beginning to deepen, even out; Matt absently traces his friend’s descent into unconsciousness. Tracks the slowing of his heartrate, the way it vibrates minutely through the mattress between them. Admittedly, it’s relaxing.

 

But he’s sure he won’t be able to sleep.

 

This is his last waking thought. He dreams of Foggy and Mrs Jameson, two shapes sketched in fire. They’re dancing to the low wail of a saxophone.

 

 

**end**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I refuse to hold stories hostage, ransoming them for reviews. So this is not that. But I’ve been chipping away at two other DD fics for a while now (both of them already fairly long, by my standards), and I’m interested to know if anyone might have an opinion on which I should try to finish first. One is a post-ep for “Cut Man” – as if that ep needs more MattWhump – and the other a fill for some kink meme prompts and the h/c bingo square “whipping/flogging.” The first is with Claire, the second with Foggy. My intention is to complete both anyway, but I’m curious to hear what you think. With those vague teasers, any strong preference either way?


End file.
